Text | Li Xiaoyu
Edit | Noisy
26 years ago, "Journey to the West" has become a classic that cannot be surpassed in the hearts of a generation.
It pioneered the "nonsense comedy" and also made people remember the Supreme Treasure and the Purple Xia Fairy.
Even today, many lines in the film are still talked about by fans.
However, in that year, after the release of this film, not only was the box office sluggish, but the director Liu Zhenwei was also scolded by Hong Kong film critics.
What "cultural garbage", "bad films", "no connotation"...
To this end, he even left the film and television circle and went to Canada.
In Liu Zhenwei's heart, "Journey to the West" once became a failure in his life.
01 Self-taught "Nonsense Originator"
Liu Zhenwei was born in August 1952 on Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong.
When he was very young, he often followed his mother to two of the few theaters on the island to watch movies.
Perhaps since then, the seeds of literature and art have been deeply planted in his heart.
But before he could take root, 16-year-old Liu Zhenwei went to England to study fine arts.
After graduation, his first job was as a designer in an advertising agency. After 3 years of confusion, he still had no interest in it, so he returned to Hong Kong to work as a manager in a financial company.
At that time, when the "new wave of Hong Kong cinema" was in full swing, Liu Zhenwei's company decided to invest in films in Hong Kong and take advantage of the opportunity to make a dividend.
Later, the company signed new directors such as Xu Ke and Xu Anhua, and participated in the supervision of "New Wave" masterpieces such as "Marginal Man" and "Burning Youth", and Liu Zhenwei also changed from finance to production manager.
Four years later, the company collapsed, and the seed about the movie in Liu Zhenwei's heart was activated and grew out of control.
Unlike many well-known film directors, Liu Zhenwei is not from a science class, nor has he had the experience of being a reporter or counselor before. At that time, he was completely self-taught, slowly growing from a production manager to a director and screenwriter.
And this is probably one of the reasons why his films are so fanciful and unique.
Liu Zhenwei happened to meet Wong Kar-wai, who was fired by Huang Baiming, two people with very different personalities, but also with movie dreams.
In this way, the two embarked on the path of the dream director together.
In 1987, the two joined Shadow Master Productions.
At that time, Hong Kong people were very fond of watching ghost movies, so Liu Zhenwei was the director and Wong Kar-wai was the screenwriter, and the two cooperated to shoot the first work "The Fierce Ghost Bad House".
After the film was released, the response was strong, and then they made a number of ghost films and made a lot of money.
Later, gambling films became popular, and in 1990, Jiahe Company planned to make a low-budget film to spoof "God of Gamblers".
Originally, he wanted to find Liang Chaowei, a tvB first-line student, to play the male protagonist, but Liu Zhenwei, as a director, took a fancy to Zhou Xingchi, who was not yet famous.
In the end, Liang Chaowei refused the invitation, and Zhou Xingchi naturally became the male protagonist.
Liu Zhenwei broke the original style of "God of Gamblers" and integrated a large number of nonsensical elements into "Gamblers", and this low-cost film that only took 5 hours to write a script and shoot for 37 days actually surpassed the former, beating the Xu brothers' "New Half a Pound and Eight Twos", breaking through the 40 million box office, and also making Zhou Xingchi popular overnight, transforming from "Star Boy" into "Star Master".
Later, when it became popular to shoot martial arts films, the two cooperated with Andy Lau's Tianmu Film Company to shoot "91 Divine Eagle Heroes".
After its release, it caused a sensation again, not only winning 20 million box office, but also winning 2 awards and 3 nominations at the Academy Awards.
In 1991, Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai co-founded Zedong Film Company, and the first film was originally to be filmed "East Evil and West Poison", which was divided into two parts, a New Year file and a summer file.
More than a month later, Wong Kar-wai still adheres to the usual "slow pace" and has not even finished shooting the first shot.
The funder was anxious, Liu Zhenwei was anxious, but Wong Kar-wai was not in a hurry, he said to Liu Zhenwei: Do you want to shoot the second part first?
Seeing that at the end of the year, there is no time to write the script, and Liu Zhenwei can only start shooting directly, while shooting and writing.
With Wong Kar-wai, Lin Qingxia, Zhang Guorong, Jacky Cheung, Liang Chaowei, Liu Jialing, Wang Zuxian... A group of Hong Kong A-list actors at that time laughed madly on the set of Liu Zhenwei during the day, and cried until they collapsed on the set of Wong Kar-wai at night...
In the words of Liu Zhenwei: "At that time, everyone was divided."
And this film, which was made in only 27 days, once again created a miracle and was on the top ten list of Hong Kong film box office that year.
What is unexpected is that the time is so tight, Liu Zhenwei even helped his friend Yuan Kui write the script of "Fang Shiyu" at the same time, and this movie was also a great success.
In 1992, Liu Zhenwei directed "92 Black Roses vs. Black Roses", from the classic Cantonese film "Black Rose", he extended the exhibition of many fantastic nonsense bridges, and added a variety of elements such as borrowing corpses to return the soul, nostalgia, absurdity, dance and so on.
However, when he first saw the script, no one was optimistic about him. To this end, Liu Zhenwei reduced the remuneration of all actors. For him, who grew up watching Cantonese films, this is the obsession in his heart and the feeling that cannot be abandoned.
Unexpectedly, the film later continued to sell well, and because of the good word of mouth, it was screened from summer to autumn. It set a record for the only film in Hong Kong to be released for 168 consecutive days, and also won two Golden Rooster Awards.
Shooting more different types of movies, Liu Zhenwei began to hide his name, in "91 Divine Eagle Heroes", his name is Li Dawei; in "92 Black Rose to Black Rose", his name is Chen Shanzhi; in "Heaven and Earth", his name is Liu Yuming.
High prolific, selling seats, making money, and poking the hearts of the audience, Liu Zhenwei not only let nonsense head into the public vision, but also became one of the most popular commercial film directors in the Hong Kong film and television circle at that time.
However, when his confident "Journey to the West" was released, the audience did not buy it.
Not only was the box office dismal, but he was also scolded to quit the film and television circle, what is going on?
02 The "King of Comedy" Who Has Fallen and Retreated
In 1994, Zhou Xingchi, who has been in the Hong Kong film industry for many years, founded the Color Star Film Company with his friends in order to realize the freedom of filming.
When Liu Zhenwei came to him with his proud work, Zhou Xingchi not only agreed to star and go to Ningxia to shoot, but also invested 50 million Hong Kong dollars, intending to use it as the pioneering work of his company.
And the movie that makes Zhou Xingchi so big is "Journey to the West", which is divided into two parts: "Moonlight Treasure Box" and "The Great Saint Marries".
During the filming, the conditions were difficult and the actors were in short supply, in order to complete it smoothly, Wu Mengda played a triangle; even the on-set director was assigned a role; Liu Zhenwei simply shaved his hair, personally went into battle, and became a Bodhi Laozu.
Because it is a co-production, the differences in culture, language, and working methods often make the set often fall into chaos.
Many group actors believe that this play is simply insulting to "Journey to the West", so they often stage collective strikes.
After months of painstaking filming and post-editing, when the film was officially released, it was far below expectations.
The cost of 60 million Hong Kong dollars, the upper and lower two films add up to only more than 50 million, and the film critics are ridiculed.
Even a leader of the cooperating Western Film Studio said bluntly: "Journey to the West" can only be regarded as cultural garbage!
Box office reputation fiasco, Zhou Xingchi's company has not yet opened before it closed.
For a time, "Journey to the West" was heavily labeled as a "bad film", causing Liu Zhenwei to even eat when he heard someone next to him talk about this film and did not dare to stay for a long time, for fear of being recognized.
That year was the 8th year that Liu Zhenwei stepped into the ranks of directors, and the "workaholic" model for many years made him develop the habit of staying in hotels and spending time with his wife on weekends.
Staying away from home for a long time, just to save more time and create more movies.
After this encounter, he was discouraged by his original confidence, and also gave him time to reflect.
Looking back, Liu Zhenwei realized his dereliction of duty as a husband and also realized the importance of family.
Painfully, he decided to let himself stop, quit the film and television circle, and go to Canada.
For the next 6 years, he immersed himself in the family atmosphere and enjoyed the warmth of the family.
At first, I felt that every day was a repetitive cycle, but I really began to participate in this kind of life, buying vegetables and cooking with my wife... Accompanying his wife to conceive a small life, watching her daughter be born, grow up, go to school... He began to feel that this kind of life was completely different from making movies, more real and more fulfilling than making movies.
So much so that when he returned to the film and television circle again, he said to many directors: "These 6 years are my most fulfilling 6 years, and everything you shoot is fake." ”
03 Return but become the "king of bad films"
During his retirement, he received a phone call from Wong Kar-wai, telling him that "Journey to the West" was so popular in the mainland that pirated discs were sold like crazy.
At that time, he didn't think much about it, until he received a call from Zhou Xingchi, Liu Zhenwei was sure that the movie he called "failure" was really on fire.
In 2001, he reappeared at the invitation of Toh Ki-fung and Wong Kar-wai and directed the fantasy romance film "Infinite Resurrection";
Soon after, Wong Kar-wai encountered a bottleneck in filming "2046", and Liu Zhenwei rescued him again and cooperated with him to shoot "The World Is Unmatched".
Unexpectedly, after a brief return, Liu Zhenwei once again announced his withdrawal from the film and television circle.
Until two years later, Zhou Xingchi invited him to supervise the production of "Kung Fu", this time Liu Zhenwei did not shirk, but put forward a condition for Zhou Xingchi: on the set, no tantrums are allowed.
Zhou Xingchi agreed to come down, and the two joined forces again, and after the release of "Kung Fu", the box office and word of mouth were both harvested, which also made up for the regret of "Journey to the West" that year.
A few years later, when Zhou Xingchi was preparing to shoot "Yangtze River No. 7", he invited Liu Zhenwei again, but he refused this cooperation because he wanted to accompany his daughter to learn dance.
At this point, Liu Zhenwei's directing career seems to have come to a node, and his next works have plummeted.
From "Love Epilepsy Dasheng", "Yueguang Treasure Box", to "Big Talk Heavenly Immortal", "East into West 2011", and then to "Big Talk West Journey 3", Liu Zhenwei turned over and over to play with the "Big Talk West Journey" IP, but he could no longer surpass the works of that year, and the score was lower than one.
Liu Zhenwei's films hit the street one after another, and 2017's "Where Do You Run" invested 60 million yuan, but the box office was only 300,000, becoming the first negative textbook of the year;
2016's "Journey to the West 3" and 2018's "Kung Fu League" were even selected for the Golden Broom.
At this point, Liu Zhenwei fell from the "king of comedy" to the altar and became the director who disappointed the audience the most.
Some people mocked him and ridiculed Jiang Lang for exhausting his talents and becoming a "rotten film making machine" that "ate the old book".
Some people shouted for him to stop the circle of money and get out of the film and television circle.
Some people doubt that the film he made that year was able to become popular, but it was an accident.
In fact, sequel shooting is never an easy task, let alone such a classic "Journey to the West".
Liu Zhenwei also said bluntly in the interview: "In fact, the aura of "Journey to the West" is given to us by the audience, they have turned this film into a classic, and I am only responsible for moving forward. ”
Speaking of this matter, Liu Zhenwei did not shy away from it, and he admitted that in the past few years of retirement, the film market has already undergone earth-shaking changes. A large number of Hong Kong directors have entered the mainland, there are more and more co-productions, and the number of Hong Kong cinemas has shrunk to one-third of its peak...
The golden age of Hong Kong cinema has become a thing of the past, and the era that belonged to Lau Chun-wai will eventually go away.
Liu Zhenwei or Zhou Xingchi, after the peak will usher in decline, no one can become the eternal king, there will eventually be the next king of comedy stepping on the torrent of the times.